Guns and Roses

It is that time of the year when a collection of hillbilly vehicles appear at the edge of our garden. The sound of birds chirping is shattered by the screaming of baying dogs and a Boggis, Bunce and Bean collection of men in Hi Vis orange jackets, looking like an angry mob of Liberal Democrats tanked up on moonshine and eager to kill anything that moves (often each other or some innocent bystander) muster. Yes, it's that Chasse time of year. 

If you are off out for a leisurely stroll after Sunday lunch be sure to don your striped bobble hat and multicoloured coat. Now is not the time to go a-wandering down a country lane in your wild boar jacket with complimentary coypu hat. 

I'm not good with guns. Even the recent sight of soldiers at Poitiers Airport packing automatic weapons, made me break out in a sweat. My family's history is peppered with gun related incidents. In fact I'm lucky to still be alive. 

My grandfather only had one eye. I erroneously thought he had lost it while opening a bottle of Champagne; the cork blasting into his eye socket on release. I was recently informed that he actually lost it when, as a child of six, he was flattening spent shotgun cartridges with a hammer and one still had some life in it. The only positive to discovering this is that my irrational fear of Champagne bottles has subsided.

My father is a keen gardener. We used to live in an old vicarage surrounded by a large garden which he would toil in; manicuring the lawns and herbaceous borders. But he was often frustrated by the woodland creatures who conspired against him. Badgers would come in the dead of night and dig great troughs in the lawns. Molehills would pop up all over the place when he wasn't looking and an army of rabbits would decimate the borders and vegetable patch. 

He tried a variety of things to keep the rabbit population at bay. Chicken wire was used to surround beds and precious shrubs (the garden took on the appearance of Stalag Luft 3). A mail order of 'scent of tiger' was purchased at great expense and dowsed on old underpants which were strategically hung on poles around the garden. 

At some point he came into the possession of an old family heirloom. A gun. A shotgun. It had belonged to an uncle of his who had used it for shooting parrots in South America. It was affectionately known as the parrot gun. There weren't many parakeets in Hertfordshire in the 80s so pater set his sights on Br'er rabbit. 

One Sunday lunchtime the whole family was sitting around the table enjoying meat, veg and a family argument, when my dad looked out of the window and saw a rabbit nibbling on his prize Pelargoniums or some such flora. In his most authoritative Lord-of-the-manor voice he shouted “Bring me my parrot gun!”. 

On its arrival, the kitchen window was opened, the firearm 'broken' and two cartridges inserted. 

When the butt of the gun was brought up to the barrel there was the most deafening bang as the gun went off. Blasting a sizeable whole in the kitchen floor.

My mother screamed, various bits of cutlery, roast potatoes, meat and gravy went flying through the air as me, my brother and sister all jumped out of our skins. I couldn't hear anything except a whistling noise, but felt I was giggling nervously. The family Labrador who had been sniffing around the muzzle of the gun at the time of discharge (and was lucky not to have had her head blown off) started trying to tunnel through the kitchen floor and the rabbit hopped off in the direction of the vegetable patch. 

A few days later, so ashamed of his Farmer McGregor type behaviour, my father wrapped the shotgun in numerous bin liners and handed it in at the local constabulary. 

N.B. The family dog went on to live a long and happy life; me, my brother and father suffer from tinnitus; the hole in the kitchen floor is still there and both rabbit and parakeet population are thriving in South West Hertfordshire.